PS considers it inappropriate to compare housing measures with Salazar

The deputy general secretary of the PS found on Wednesday “deeply indecent and disrespectful” the comparison made by the SDP vice-president of the government’s housing measures and those of Salazar, and said that “everything is not worth it” in politics.

“Everything is unfair in politics. Memory in our country is deeply indecent and disrespectful and is such baseless criticism that it does not respect the history of the PSD,” João Torres said in a statement to the Lusa news agency.

The Socialist leader was referring to the speech of the Vice-President of the Social Democratic Party António Leitan Amaro at the Summer University, a social democratic initiative for the training of young cadres, in Castelo de Vide, Portalegre. Leitan Amaru said that some of the solutions proposed by the Prime Minister in the field of housing are comparable to those proposed by António de Oliveira Salazar.

The deputy general secretary of the PS considered the criticism “unfortunate” and “deeply unfair and unacceptable”, but denied reports that the party was considering taking any action against the SDP.

“In terms of the content of the public housing policy, today there is not a single Portuguese who knows about one PSD measure for this sector. And, therefore, I am forced to attribute this excess to the inability that the SDP has shown itself to be a credible alternative in other areas of public intervention,” he criticized.

The leader of the socialists also considered that the social democrats demonstrate “an inability to reach out to the people.”

João Torres defended that “in a democracy, alternatives assert themselves through ideas, through proposals”, and believed that “the PSD clearly does not have the capacity” that “neoliberalism, the idea that the market solves all problems” accepts it. .

“It is no coincidence that, in his governmental functions, he did absolutely nothing with regard to housing, except to approve in the Assembly of the Republic a law, the so-called “Christas law”, in the hope that this law will solve all problems. problems of the market and housing sector. It didn’t happen,” he said.

PS, he argued, “is the point of balance between the measures and proposals that the parties on his left present regarding housing, and those that represent the ideas or values ​​of the right regarding housing, which in this environment are deeply imbued with the idea that markets decide everything.” problems, namely an increase in supply.

The socialist also noted that “some European countries have taken measures to regulate the housing market” and that the PS “built a house from the foundation.”

“Today we have the Housing Basic Law approved by the Assembly of the Republic in 2019, in early 2016 we moved forward to discuss a new generation of housing policies, and the More Housing program acts as a complement to the structural reform that was “There are and work will continue to increase the supply of housing, both for the most needy and most vulnerable segments of the population, and for the middle class,” he stressed.

João Torres stated that this government strategy “was reinforced by the presentation of the ‘Mais Habitação’ package, which is a “complement, strengthening of the policy in relation to the strategy that was already being developed, is being implemented and will continue.” well”.

The Assistant Secretary General also stressed that there are currently “over 270 local housing strategies” and that the government has a “global ambition to reach 100,000 households” with housing measures.